Avalon Rising (7 page)

I shake my head to collect these staccato thoughts. “What has the Fisher King to do with Avalon?”

“Nothing,” replies the Lady of the Lake.

“Everything,” replies Merlin at the same time.

I don’t know whom to trust. Both the Lady of the Lake and Merlin stare at one another with such authority in their stances, with power in their voices, but Merlin is a thief of magic once again, and perhaps by default, he’s a liar as well. But to me? When I was a child, it was Merlin, and Merlin alone, who found amusement in the aeroship I forged from pieces of his hookah. It was Merlin who saw in me the potential to be a student of his, and then an apprentice. Even when he stole magic to conceal Marcus and me from Morgan, even when he stole more to get us out of the woods all together, he wouldn’t lie. Not my teacher, no matter how much of a scoundrel he is, no matter what Azur said about alchemy being the darkest path to magic. He wouldn’t lie. Not to me.

But now he growls at the Lady of the Lake, like she’s no better a foe than Morgan was. “We both know it has to be Vivienne. Don’t deny it; don’t you dare deny it again after what happened last time.” His transparent fingers tighten around her wrist, holding her still as he flickers between spirit and corporal form.

Last time? I don’t understand why a demigoddess and a sorcerer would ever fight about me.

She narrows her eyes on his ghostly features. “That is not for certain,
thief
.” Her lip curls on the insult. “The most direct route is the safest for the bearer of Avalon’s coordinates; to gallop to each corner of the known world might mean those coordinates are lost to another. We
know
this. No matter how long it takes for the rogues to be defeated, no matter what might happen in the meantime, Vivienne cannot leave Camelot, and I stretched fate enough by allowing her to be the one to construct the aeroship. She must wait until the rogues have been put into their place, the Black Knight, slain. The Fisher King it not a necessary cog in this plan.”

I won’t let them talk about me like I’m not standing here, three feet away. “But people I love are missing, and I have the means to find them. You must understand how important it is that I go! I cannot risk wasting time going after a thief of magic who—”

“You want to find your beloved and your brother,” Merlin interrupts, “and after that, you want to help Jerusalem defeat the Spanish rogues. To do so, you’ll need the Grail. If you need the Grail, you’ll first need the Fisher King.”

I feel my resolve falter as his words fly at me. “That’ll take time, and the longer I’m outside of Camelot—”

“Yes, it will take time, and it’ll be quite dangerous.” Merlin rolls his head on his neck. His eyes flash gold and white and then return to the blue ones I knew. The fiery anger he bore abandons him for curiosity. “The Lady of the Lake knows what sort of evils lie outside of this castle, Vivienne. As do I. Are you ready to see the harshness of the world, a girl such as yourself?” If he weren’t an emotionless thief of magic, I’d have wondered if he were actually a bit worried.

But I’ve had people worrying about me long enough. “I’m not a child.”

With a toss of the Lady of the Lake’s wrist, he storms toward me, and when he’s no more than a foot away, the coolness of his spirit surrounds me in a way that’s awesome and frightening. “But you
are
a child. You’re a girl who found my work interesting, curious, and now you seek something greater. I told you what the Grail’s powers contained. Tell the truth, girl. Are you ready to see what sort of magic you’ll be up against?”

My eyes well at his harsh tone, but I lift my chin high. I know this is a test. Gawain said those on the Grail quest would be tested. Why should I be any different? “Yes.”

Merlin cocks an eyebrow, and a smile skirts to the side of his face. “So be it.”

The Lady of the Lake’s face darkens with fury. “She cannot leave, wizard, or all will be for naught! If you send her away, you’ll have my wrath to face! I will find her!”

Merlin seizes my cloak and pulls me close so he can whisper in my ear. “Get to the north, to the Fisher King. Save him—it must be
you
. He can unlock the coordinates from your mind and give you something I’ve hidden with him. You’ll need it to find the Grail, and you must guard it with your life.” Then his temperament changes with the taunting lift of one eyebrow. “There’ll be no hope for Azur or Jerusalem or anyone else if you don’t heed my commands. But if all this proves to be too much, and you can no longer bear such magic in a ruthless world, turn back. Won’t you?”

His eyebrow lifts higher: this is a challenge. He wants to see what I can do.

I narrow my eyes. “Do not patronize me,” I whisper back.

The Lady of the Lake lifts her cane high. Her eyes turn white, and her hair follows suit: from root to tip, it paints itself with the hues of snow and starlight, and her tea-colored skin sparkles with a sort of magic I never saw in Morgan. Magic that could never be reined by a human.

“Hancashi feramitanouski mittererasha intsoh gehennamach!”
she shouts in a voice that sends a force of power against the trees and flattens them. “Get to hell, thief!”

Merlin spins in place and points his emerald-stone cane at the Lady of the Lake. The light bounces off his hand and rushes back at her. She recoils, stepping away from the power. I look out from under the hem of my cloak just as Merlin’s eyes turn completely red with dark magic.

“Hell is no place for me, demigoddess,” he growls. “I have work to do.” He finds me again, and we struggle to stare at each other with the red magic around him. “Go now, Vivienne! Do not leave without my journals—you’ll need them.”

I’ve searched those journals a million times for the instructions to make
jaseemat
, but they’ve come up empty—what could I need them for? “Why? Merlin! I don’t—”

“Fly north!” he says, and I do not miss the touch of shame that draws his eyebrows together, showing me the bit of humanity still left in him. But then he faces the Lady of the Lake again, a vision of great whiteness that nearly blinds me with power and deafens me with her angry cries. Even when Morgan le Fay unleashed drones and drones and fire onto Camelot, I’ve never seen such power and might before.

I know there’s no time, and if I don’t leave now, the Lady of the Lake might hold me here forever. With a final look at my mentor, I jump onto my waiting horse’s back. It whinnies with surprise and soars across the ground, hooves clamping on snow and rock and ice. We ride through the woods. Only once do I risk a look over my shoulder at the magical battle. I’m shaking like mad, as though the cold has seeped through my skin and into my bones to forever haunt me with its cruelty. I feel my heart fall into a fit of devastation at the thought that Merlin might forever be a ghost seeking magic to sustain him. I don’t know how he escaped Azur’s vault, if Azur will seek a way to bring him back. If Azur is even alive. I don’t know if my mentor is forever gone, and I don’t know if I’ll now be seen as a thief of magic myself, having followed the orders of Merlin.

My horse breaks through the woods, and we ride on through the countryside with Arthur’s Norwegian steel trailing behind. At the cusp of the forest before the lake, I spy Rufus waiting. He’s set an iron exoskeleton about my aeroship with the thinnest rods he could forge, and he’s strengthened the main sail. There’s already a fire burning inside the aeroship’s furnace, ready to come to life.

To see my aeroship in all its grandeur is nearly enough to make me forget the very real and very awful possibility that I might never see Merlin again. But if this was to be the last time, I can never forget what he did. For it is only through his defiance of the Lady of the Lake that I’m able to leave Camelot.

Perhaps Merlin’s soul was the price for me to know what world I’ll soon face.

Rufus calls my horse to a halt. There’s no sign of Merlin or the Lady of the Lake, though in the woods behind me, there are occasional thunderous slams to the earth, like lightning bolts striking the ground. Strange lights appear, too bright, and for a moment, I watch. “Oh, Merlin.”

The blacksmith takes the reins from my hands. “We have to hurry.” His eyes are all knowing, like perhaps he anticipated our shared mentor would return to ensure our escape. And, at that, I have to be resilient against the path my father designed for me, or the Lady of the Lake. Because if it is true that Merlin is my only ally other than Rufus, then by God, I’ll hold onto what I can.

My aeroship’s wings have been strengthened and tightened, and they wave about in the skies, ready to combat the wind. Almost ready: Rufus will have to reinforce the vessel with Arthur’s Norwegian steel. And I should help.

But my eyes catch sight of the clock tower, and a tug at my heart won’t let me leave this soon. Besides, “His journals.”

Merlin told me to bring them. Though I’m not sure why. Beyond the obvious fact that the instructions to make Azur’s
jaseemat
have evaded me, I found in his journals no maps or blueprints.

Rufus glances back at the castle. The guards patrolling the walls are plentiful now that they’ve heard of the Spanish rogues’ attack on Jerusalem, and from this distance I can see my father’s window in our quarters and the illuminated gas lanterns. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll notice I’ve left. He might send guards after me to ensure I find myself on the aeroship he sent for.

It can’t matter, I decide. “I’ll return as fast as I can,” I promise Rufus. I have to get Merlin’s journals, even if it might bring me face to face with my father one last time.

“Wait, my lady—”

But I’ve already seized my horse’s reins and ridden off.

Mornings in Camelot have been silent as of late; the gardens and courtyard are akin to graveyards. I reach the wall and tie my horse to the brambles hiding the break. My hood atop my hair, I rush for the village by way of the gardens, running past each snowy tree along the path I know all too well. I keep to the outskirts of the village, avoiding the few serfs who stayed after Morgan’s war to assist in the infirmary. The fully-healed squire Stephen helps two priests ease a hurt knight to his feet, slowly back to walking. Finally, I reach Rufus’s shop and climb the steps to Merlin’s clock tower.

At the top, the heavy winds have fallen asleep, letting me sift through stilled papers and journals and scrolls and tools on the sorcerer’s desk. Merlin’s leather holster I blasphemously buckle around my waist, and his long, antiqued blade goes inside with a spare firelance secured at my hip. The goggles embroidered by my mother I hang around my neck. I’ll need them as I steer my aeroship through the clouds. My stomach flits with excitement at the thought— the wind, the skies, the world outside Camelot.

A slow, sputtering puncturing of air splits the blue and gray of the sky, growing louder and louder. I duck toward the window just as a large body of polished wood with bird-like sails soars by. It sends a gust of frozen wind into my hair, freeing it from its steel netting. The aeroship ordered by my father to take me north.

I have to move faster. There was never any time to come back.
Damn you, Merlin!

On his work desk is his leather satchel. I pour inside all the tools and journals and scrolls—familiar or not—I can find. Scrolls which, God willing, might contain maps to the land of the Fisher King. Steel wire, a knife, Azur’s reserve of
jaseemat
. If only I had Merlin’s pistolník …

My viewer is on the table where I built my long-lost mechanical falcon, Terra. I seize it. Caldor, with its broken wing because of my stupid wrath—I cannot leave it behind. Besides, if Rufus and I are to be flying over the seas, we’ll need something to navigate us in case the device in the helm should fail.

I fit my fingers around Caldor’s dislodged wing and twist it once so it fits inside the falcon’s shoulder. It won’t be permanent, but it’ll hold for now. I pour some of Merlin’s
jaseemat
inside. I store a small velvet purse with more
jaseemat
inside the falcon’s belly and shut the metal gate.

“
Yaty ala alhyah
.”

An awareness comes over Caldor’s beady eyes, and it cocks its head, feathers ruffling against its copper body.

“To the aeroship,” I say, and Caldor takes flight from the window, spiraling through clouds heavy with the weight of a million snowflakes.

I sling the satchel over my shoulder and flee the tower. Climb the cellar steps outside Rufus’s workshop; the iron door’s clatter is dreadfully loud, but the aeroship’s propellers are even more thunderous. I gauge my surroundings. The vessel that’ll try to take me north is heading eastward, toward the docks.

I glance up at Caldor flying over the trees; it’ll reach Rufus at the lake before I will. Its caw pierces the might of the air, and with it, I hear male voices shouting orders to one another. As I race for the gardens, I realize one of the voices is my father’s.

“Where is she? With all of the Holy Land under attack, who knows if Camelot won’t be next? She needs to head north. Vivienne!”

I’m running as fast as I can, and when I reach the threshold of the gardens, I see out of the corner of my eye the slick gentleman’s jacket of Lord William as he strolls through the courtyard, Lancelot not too far behind. I duck under a tree. My eyes dart to the wall where a pair of patrolling guards makes their way closer to the break that was my only plan of escape.
Blast.

“Vivienne!” my father calls again, louder now.

I peer around the tree at my pacing father.

His old eyes search about in worry, in fatigue. “Ready to leave in a half hour’s time. She can’t be too far.” He marches in the direction of our family’s quarters. As I turn to the walls of the city, there are now six guards patrolling and searching, but they’ve paused at Lord William’s instructions, and have likewise turned their backs to me.

I run for the break in the wall where squires would buy their
shisha
from passing gypsies. I run from Camelot and from my father, whom I realize I won’t have the chance to say good-bye to, despite the chains he’d give me if he could. I reach the lake. I’ve made it. I’ve made it, and God willing I have all I’ll need to find Marcus and Owen and the Holy Grail.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve left my entire life behind.

By the time I reach Rufus, he’s tightening the main sail to stand strong against the growing wind and shoots me a look of urgency as my horse stops. “Start the aeroship! Where’s the
jaseemat
?”

I hold up the satchel as I leap from the horse and send it running back to Camelot. “We don’t have much time left!”

Rufus glances twice at the castle behind me. “Less.” I whip around. The drawbridge is lowering. I spot my father atop the citadel wall as he looks out at the horses riding toward us. To the east, I see the floating aeroship waiting to fly north.

It can’t be like this. I turn back to Rufus, but I don’t know what to say. He might try to make me stay.

But he doesn’t. He hesitates, and then, “Get aboard.”

Caldor lands on my shoulder with the blacksmith’s words. I climb the steps to my aeroship and head straight to the helm. On the far side is the hot-burning furnace, and I throw back the grate. I add more charcoal to the iron lungs and light it with the quicklight I’ll give to Marcus as a birthday present if I find him—
when
. I open Azur’s reserve of
jaseemat
, and the old alchemist’s whispered words bring the golden dust to life. It floats around the fire and spiders throughout the aeroship’s body. At the helm, I ignite the engine. It sputters once and finds its rhythm, ebbing and flowing like a wave with the alchemy’s song.

And still, there are calls, shouts, warnings, my father’s pleas booming through the air. He’s never used such an angry voice when it concerned me; all of these growls had been saved and carefully reserved for his annoyance with Arthur’s council. Ahead, in the woods, the flickering flashes and eerie songs of a magical battle play on between Merlin and the demigoddess, and this distracts me from the knot in my throat, courtesy of a father who might be too angry and too worried ever to soften his tone.

Beside me, Rufus gives me a solemn nod. “She’s ready.”

I look up at the grandeur of the aeroship that only existed in my mind before this as a tiny hookah-pieced model when I was only twelve, in the blueprints I’d agonized over for weeks before gathering the courage to construct. The sails are secure, taut, incredible, taller than Camelot’s gates. The
jaseemat
brings a strange bit of fortitude and luminescence to the copper helm and the ship’s iron linings, and I must remember what Merlin told me: it cannot bring to life that which never had the potential for life to begin with. Arthur’s Norwegian steel is abundant with song and glory, covering most of the wood and hammered into the crevices to keep it strong.

I know I couldn’t have done this without Rufus. “Let’s go, then,” I say.

I have my foot on a pedal that churns
jaseemat
further into the furnace, and I face the lock on the lever that will bring the ship to life. There’s a small assembly of eight gears attached to a face I’ll turn clockwise, and then counter-clockwise, and then back again. Three clicks, and the contraption unlocks.

With a sharp tug of the lever, I start the stout wheels under the vessel until they move. Faster, and then faster still. The wings on either side of me jet outward from the body, and I gauge the bare land in front of us—we’ll have to take flight soon, much too soon, lest we would find ourselves in the thick of the woods. Oars lie on the inner side extended with beams of iron, letting me adjust the angles from the helm. Sixty degrees should do it.

“Ready!” I call to Rufus, manning the sail.

Behind us, Lancelot, the faster rider in Camelot, is gaining speed. “Lady Vivienne, stop!”

I face Rufus. His nod is encouragement enough. My boot slams on the pedal of wood and steel, and suddenly, the aeroship’s bumpy ride becomes smooth. We lift off into the air, higher and higher and higher, and then the home I once knew changes. Now, it is only a speck of gray in the distance.

I tear around and seize my viewer from my pocket. Extend it so that the citadel walls are in view. Lord William watches my aeroship’s ascent, though I’m certain he does not see me from so far away. But then the angry brows drawn together soften with defeat or surrender, and he retreats slowly to the castle until only his gentleman’s jacket is visible, and the arms that would embrace me when I was a girl.

I free my gaze from Camelot, blinking away the tears that have sought to ambush me, and I think of how once, my father never gave up searching until he found me hiding in an elm tree.

I stand for a long time at the ship’s bow, studying the borders of the world that separate castle from farmland, wheat from cattle-grounds. There are trees and mountains to distract me from the melancholy lurking in my heart, and mostly everything is covered in snow, but there are also great lakes that haven’t frozen over yet. The ocean far off appears as though we’d peeked around a corner, and its waves are dances of wind and water that disappear into the blue horizon of this new day. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

I don’t miss the detail of the gears and pulleys surrounding the copper-plated helm, or Rufus’s new tug connected to the main sail that’ll adjust our direction with the wings more smoothly, not to mention the reservoir that’ll send an extra burst of
jaseemat
into the furnace whenever I might desire a sharp increase of speed. Of course, this means I’ll need to know how to make
jaseemat
at these heights. And soon. Otherwise, to exhaust that option, we’d run out in minutes.

But to worry about such things at a time when I’m feeling the winds of the entire world is not what I plan to do. I breathe, letting my sorrow rise from my heart until it’s expelled, sent into the air, the currents gliding over me like I’ve never felt before. We’re soaring, and I reach out to grab the wisps of white and gray clouds. The tendrils drift over my fingers, leaving them cold and wet. A flock of northern birds is late to head south, and I’m nearly tempted to add a bit more of Azur’s alchemic powder to my mechanical falcon to send it into the skies. How on earth could I ever feel so conflicted when the world lies static beneath me?

“Lady Vivienne?” Rufus calls from the helm, bursting my bubble of awe. “We’ll head due south until we reach España.”

I turn, recalling Merlin’s instruction to head north. “No, we must … ” I pause, my gaze latched onto Rufus’s. What I say might let him connect me to the Lady of the Lake. What can I tell the blacksmith, and what might be too much? I have to lie. “In Merlin’s clock tower, I used a spare looking glass to get in touch with Azur.”

Rufus shifts nervously. “He would have been furious to know you left Camelot.”

“On the contrary,” I say quickly, “Azur said we should make for the north to the Perilous Lands, the land of the Fisher King. Marcus likely went there, as Galahad’s infantry was already on their way.”

Rufus’s eyebrows rise. “The Fisher King?”

“You know of him?”

Rufus shakes his head in a way that tells me he might not want to think about it. Though he steers us onward, he’s a million miles away, perhaps at the bottom of the sea in the midst of these clouds, revisiting ghosts of Lyonesse who want to ensure the time he spent there will never be forgotten. “Damn it all!” he shouts.

I frown at the angry response. “What do you know of him?”

But Rufus shuts his eyes and does not answer for a long time. Then he sets the helm against a lever that keeps the aeroship northbound and comes to my side at the bow’s railing.

“He was a king who stole magic to make his castle fruitful. Had a remarkably strong queen and two warrior sons who married princesses and gave him a wealth of grandchildren. Loved and respected by his people, and his land in the north was amongst the most prosperous in all of Britannia. But the crime of magic caught up with him, and he was found out by the demigods, who punished him by destroying all he knew and loved before turning him into a living statue.” He leans on the railing as the clouds spill around us into a beautiful, calming blue. “Sometimes death is the merciful option, Lady Vivienne.”